Danish director Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves,
Dancer in the Dark) founded the Dogme school to counteract the shameless
manipulation -- of both the audience and film technology -- by Hollywood.

Romantic comedies -- or “romcoms” as they’re known by
(their largely female) afficionados -- rely intensely on emotional manipulation,
both from heaving and sighing soundtracks and cinematography that buffs
romantic leads to a glossy, desirable sheen. It was both perverse and brave,
then, that Lone Scherfig -- the first woman to direct a Dogme film -- decided
to make a romantic comedy.

It’s strange, though, to watch a modern romantic comedy
without either Meg Ryan, or a montage sequence cut to an overproduced ballad
or saccharine oldie.

Set mostly in a Danish suburb, Scherfig’s Italian for
Beginners follows a group of lonely twentysomethings whose principle
connection is an Italian class taught at a local community centre. Andreas
(Anders Berthelsen) is a widowed pastor, Halfinn (Lars Kaalund) the short-tempered
manager of a local sports bar, and Jorgen (Peter Gantzler) is his painfully
timid best friend, in love with Guilia (Sara Indrio Jensen).

Olympia (Anette Stoevelbaek) is a chronically clumsy young
woman living with her bitter hermit of a father, while Karen (Ann Eleonora
Jorgensen), a hairdresser, is saddled with an equally disagreeable drunk
of a mother. The (altogether convenient) death of both their parents is
the catalyst that moves the story along, as Karen and Olympia discover
that they’re actually sisters.

It’s apparent early on that Jorgen’s feelings for Giulia
are mutual, and the inevitability of Andreas and Olympia’s ascent to coupledom
is telegraphed with equally scant dramatic tension. Halfinn and Karen are
also destined to be together, and while his boorishness is the principle
barrier, they’re the only couple in the film with a passionate attraction
to each other, frequently engaging in some very public sex.

The handling of the ensemble cast, with all three couples
pretty much sharing screentime, is democratic in a way that's basically
contradictory to the essence of the Hollywood romcom. In a Meg Ryan or
Julia Roberts film, the supporting players exist mainly to iterate the
desirability of the romantic leads, despite whatever neurotic or irritating
character traits the team of scriptwriters might have given them. The message,
intentional or not, is that really beautiful people deserve love, and that
denying it to them is somehow a monkey wrench in the divine order of the
cosmos. The rest of us -- neurotic or irritating without the redeeming
virtue of photogenic beauty -- must make do without swelling soundtracks
or goofy but charming sidekicks.

The film’s finale, a class trip to Venice, seems almost
obligatory. In Denmark, it’s apparent that some kind of local torpor prevents
the couples from getting together, so Scherfig moves the story to a magic
place, where the laws of entropy don’t reign. It’s sweet, but a bit abrupt,
and probably as essentially manipulative as anything you’d find in a real
Hollywood romcom.